‘Rumble’ Wins Rogers Audience Award for Canadian Film

The audiences have spoken! Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World won the inaugural Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary at Hot Docs. Rumble was announced as the winner prior to a free screening of the film at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema to close the festival. The film by Catherine Bainbridge and Alfonso Maiorana generally dominated the Canadian contingent of the audience votes despite some fair competition from Birth of a Family, A Better Man and Bee Nation. The doc chronicles the unsung contributions of Indigenous musicians throughout history. It’s Canada’s 20 Feet from Stardom and it brought the house down with standing ovations at the festival. In his review for __POV_, Jason Gorber wrote, “Loudly, proudly, Catherine Bainbridge’s Rumble reclaims its territory of music pedigree for a wider audience.”

Audiences ranked the films from 1 to 5 following each screening at the top Canadian voted getter received the prize, which carried a $50,000 purse courtesy of Rogers. It’s a healthy boost for any documentary, and one the film could certainly put to good use as it heads to theatres this summer. The win continued Rumble’s stand on the festival circuit having previously won a special jury prize for masterful storytelling at Sundance in January.

Rumble was in the runner-up spot for the overall audience award this morning, trailing the American dance doc Step. The winner of the Audience Award will be announced tomorrow.